The Confederate Flag Wasn't Really the National Confederate Flag

The confederate flag is a symbol of hatred and it’s nice that it’s going the way of the dinosaurs over in the US. But, as CGP Grey explains in his latest video, the confederate flag we know and hate wasn’t actually the national flag of the Confederate States of America. They had many national flags but the flag being banned left right and centre was never it.

Many of the flags the Confederates adopted and used in battle were very similar to the flag of the Union so they were always changing their flag, from an all blue to the real stars and bars to a white background flag to a white background flag with a red bar at the time they surrendered. But the flag we know as the confederate flag was a battle flag used by the army and navy to differentiate itself from the Union, not the government flag.

So though the design of what we thought was the confederate flag was used in certain elements, it was never actually used as the flag of the Confederate government.

This article originally appeared on Sploid, a Gizmodo blog of delicious brain candy